Summary

It is 1992 and Marie Mitchell, a single mother living in Connecticut, believes she hears an intruder in her house, which she lives in with her twin four-year-old sons William and Tommy. Marie catches the intruder and, after they engage in hand-to-hand combat, Marie kills him. Marie knows that this man was an assassin sent to kill her by her old enemies from her time working in the FBI. Marie takes her sons and flees to the idyllic tropical country of Martinique, where her mother, Agathe, lives. (Despite growing up in New York City, Marie had previously given birth to her sons there.) When the topic of her sons’ dead father comes up, Marie begins to write down the complete truth about her life for her sons to read later.

Chapter 2 takes place in New York City in 1987, the last of the five years...